Morgantown, West Virginia

What We Believe

The Bible

The Bible is the inerrant, sanctifying, authoritative, living and active word of God breathed out by God through the supernatural power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit upon its writers. The Bible is true, perfect, sure, right, and pure and it teaches convicts, corrects, and trains in righteousness. Through the Bible, God reveals himself, His plan of salvation through and only through faith in His Son Jesus Christ, and our part as His creation in His plan.

God

God is the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth and is present and active within His creation. God is transcendent of His creation and beyond the full understanding of His creation. God is righteous, holy, just, good, merciful, slow to anger, full of grace, and faithful, but also, jealous and wrathful. Ultimately, God is love. God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent in that He is all-knowing, always in control, and all places at all times.

Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is the eternal third person of the Triune God. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of guilt due to sin and leads to repentance and faith. The Holy Spirit dwells within all believers and guides us to truth, empowers us to live lives of faith, teaches us the things of God, sanctifies us to mirror the image and likeness of God, and distributes to believers the gifts of God for the purposes of edifying the church and glorifying God.

John 16:8-11; 1 Corinthians 6:19; John 14; 1 Corinthians 12:11-14:12

Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the second person of the eternal triune God. He is the image of the invisible God who is fully divine, yet took upon Himself the full human nature through the incarnation. He lived a perfect and sinless life and died as a substitutionary sacrifice atoning for the sins of the world so that whoever repents, believing in Him for salvation, shall not perish, but have eternal life; so that we may become the righteousness of God. He rose on the third day in the body in which he was crucified, ascended into heaven, and now sits at the right hand of God the Father interceding for those that belong to Him as their High Priest. He will one day return to assume complete rule over His kingdom, judging all mankind and separating the sheep from the goats for all eternity.

Salvation

Salvation is God’s plan, provided and accomplished in and by Jesus Christ through His life, death on the cross, resurrection, and ascension back to the Father, and is supernaturally initiated and applied by the Holy Spirit to the life of the believer bringing forgiveness for sins and restoring the relationship between sinful man and God. Salvation begins with conversion based upon repentance and faith and conversion leads to regeneration or new birth. Regeneration precedes justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance and finally glorification; ultimately salvation brings us into a union with Christ making us righteous in the eyes of God. Salvation is a gift from God brought about by grace and is received not by works, but only by faith in Christ Jesus.

Romans 3:23-24; Acts 3:19-20; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Ephesians 2:8-10

Trinity

The Trinity is one God, existing eternally in three divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is representative of “three-in-oneness” meaning God in three Persons, each Person being distinct, but all are fully God and equal to the whole being of God, sharing in all the attributes, characteristics, and purposes of God, but differing in their functional relationships with creation.

Genesis 1:26-27; John 1:1-3,14,18; John 14

The Church

The Church consists of all peoples throughout all time who have received salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The Church makes up the body of Christ which is under the headship of Christ, is governed by those appointed by the Holy Spirit, is in true and genuine fellowship with Him and other believers, is unified and universal, is consistently observant of the ordinances of Christ through baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and serve as the extension of His ministry by preaching, teaching, making disciples, and baptizing in and by the power and authority given by Him. One day the Church will be fully and eternally reunited with Christ as a result of His Second Coming.

Humanity

Humanity is God’s creation of man in His own image and likeness. Humanity was consciously and purposefully created by God and for God with a purpose of bringing honor to, glorifying, and praising His Holy name. Due to the one trespass of Adam, humanity is inherently sinful, wicked, and totally depraved and therefore, enemies of God separated from Him and destined to experience the wrath of Him. Humanity can only be reconciled to God and rescued from the wrath of God by His grace through faith in His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, as Savior and Redeemer.

Sin

Sin is falling short of meeting the standards of God through disobedience, both passive and active, to God. Sin came into the world through Adam and as a result, a sinful nature is universally present in all humans. Sin affects our relationship with God, our own personal lives, and our relationships with others. The ultimate result of sin is unrighteousness that leads to the punishment of God’s wrath and inevitably, death, physical and spiritual, but we can be made righteous again in the eyes of God, forgiven for our sins and disobedience, through faith in Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:23; Romans 3:10-12; 1 John 1:9; Romans 1:18; Romans 6:23

Satan

Satan is a fallen angel, created by God, but who sinned and lost the privilege of serving God. Satan is the head of all demons and is the originator of sin who opposes and works to destroy the work and purposes of God. Satan is limited in control and power with any authority coming directly from God’s permission. Ultimately, through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, Satan and his purposes have been defeated and he will eventually be thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur and will be eternally tormented.

Baptism

Baptism is an ordinance from Christ that outwardly symbolizes the inward change and transformation that has, and continues to take place, in the heart of a new believer. Baptism does not bring salvation, but instead is a public confession that one is saved. Baptism illustrates dying to self and sin (the old self), being cleansed and purified of all unrighteousness, and rising to new life (new creation) in and for Christ.

Matthew 28:18-20; Romans 6:1-11; 2 Corinthians 5:17

The Lord’s Supper

The Lord’s Supper, also known as communion, is an ordinance from Christ that brings remembrance to a believer of the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross for salvation and the forgiveness of sin. The Lord’s Supper does not bring salvation, but rather is a testament in a believer’s faith in the atoning work of Christ on the cross. The bread symbolizes Christ’s body broken for us and the cup symbolizes Christ’s blood shed for us bringing redemption and reconciliation. The Lord’s Supper brings remembrance to the new covenant we have in Christ for ‘…He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since death occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.’

Marriage

We believe that marriage is created and defined by God and for the purpose of displaying the gospel to a lost world. We believe that marriage is a covenant between one man and one woman that remains as long as they both shall live. We believe that the purpose of marriage is to display, through the husband and the wife, the covenant relationship between Christ, the bridegroom, and His bride, the Church, whom He purchased by His blood on the cross.